Tragedy of the Commons
The article below discusses the theory of the tragedy of the commons and how to avert this problem. In general, the tragedy of the commons theory states that for many common resources, certain individuals will try to use the resource to maximize their own benefit, but this often leads to a non-socially optimal usage of the resource. The common example of a common pasture that many farmers use and then the pasture gets over used as all farmers will try to graze all their sheep to maximize their personal benefit is included in the article, but other examples are mentioned as well. The article discusses the use of antibiotics and of vaccines and how they are used in a way that is not socially optimal. The main focus is the depletion of natural resources. The article concluded that when the resources are depleted, there is more incentive for people to cooperate and head toward a more socially optimal usage, but that the best system is to create incentives regarding usage (ways to dissuade over-usage) before the system becomes over used.
Focusing on the example of vaccines and antibiotics, vaccines can be underused compared to the socially optimal due to the incorrect conclusion that vaccines can cause autism and antibiotics are often overused as a single person tries to increase the benefit of antibiotics for them, as in ensuring a flock of birds does not get sick and using antibiotics for a flock before it is necessary or in the use of antibiotics for humans themselves. For vaccines, the under usage of vaccines makes a population more susceptible to a virus that has been previously eradicated. For antibiotics, the over usage of antibiotics makes a population more susceptible to a disease. Both of these link to the spread of epidemics. They are socially not optimal because the increase of a populations susceptibility means there’s an increase in the chance that a sick person will infect a healthy person. This means there is an increased chance of an epidemic as the increase in chance of a person getting sick may increase the amount of people a sick person infects to more than 1. This links together the theory of the tragedy of the commons and the spread of epidemics to explain why there are epidemics, even when they are preventable.
http://phys.org/news/2016-11-game-theory-tragedies-commons-averted.html